5 Best WordPress User Registration & Profile Plugins Compared (2018)

If you want to make your website more user-friendly by allowing the site visitors to register and create their profile on your site, a WordPress registration plugin should be all you need. Well, there are thousands of great WordPress plugins which come handy for adding great functionalities to the WP websites. No wonder, an abundant number of excellent user registration and profile plugins for WordPress are available.

Yes, a WordPress user registration plugin provides you a brilliant way to create stunning registration pages so that website visitors can register, make their profile, and you can assign custom user roles to the registered users. In addition, it lets you boost your marketing strategies as you can provide discounts, bonuses, and offers exclusively to the registered users.

That’s not all, there are multiple implications and advantages of custom WordPress registration forms which I have discussed below.

In addition, you’ll see the list of the handpicked five best WordPress user registration plugins worth checking out. So, read on.

Why would you want to have custom user registration forms on your WP site?

At first, let me explain default user registration and membership features available in the WordPress installation.

You can find the default user registration or membership options in the ‘General Settings‘ in the WordPress dashboard.

Go to your admin panel > Settings > General.

You’ll see a checkbox next to ‘Anyone can register‘ as shown in the image above. Make sure it has a check. Next, you’ll find ‘New User Default Menu’ with options in the drop down menu. It is ‘Subscriber’ by default which you may not like to change as this role prevents access to the dashboard.

Now, users can simply register to your site by going to your login URL (yoursite.com/wp-login.php).

Here is how default user registration forms in WordPress work.

All the user data (including registered users) is stored in the Users menu in the WP dashboard.

Well, you can allow your site visitors register to your WP site but it may not be ideal if you want to collect more user information or want more features like custom user profiles.

This is why you would want to have a custom user registration plugin installed on your website.

A WordPress registration plugin enables you to provide an extra space for your valued website visitors. First of all, you can have WordPress registration forms on your website front-end so that users don’t need to search for the login page. You can create beautiful user registration pages with feature-rich multi-label forms.

In addition, users can create and manage ‘My Account‘ page on their own as per their wish. Therefore, a WordPress registration plugin also serves as a WordPress profile builder.

There are more things you can do with a WordPress registration plugin. So, let’s see the advantages below.

A better way to manage new users: As the website admin, you can carefully organize the new users on your site. You can collect added information about the users by creating custom fields. While the default WordPress registration form lets you collect just username and email. Besides, it makes the user registration process secure as you can use verification links, reCAPTCHA in the forms.

Ideal for guest blogging: If you are accepting guest posts on your WordPress website, a user registration plugin can help you in a great deal. You can enable the user role as ‘Contributor‘ which allows the users to create a post on their own and submit it for review.

In the nutshell, a WordPress user registration plugin helps you inspire more website visitors to get registered. It also allows you to provide an advanced level of membership features, custom access to your website, and exclusive bonuses, and discounts to the registered users.

Best WordPress User Registration Plugins

How to add custom WordPress user registration forms?

If this was your question, I think I have already answered it. Well, you can do it easily using the registration plugins but you may still be confused not knowing which plugin to use. With several user registration plugins on the web, it’s quite a difficult task to pick one plugin.

So, I have carefully kept together the best WordPress user registration and profile plugins here.

Let’s explore them.

1. User Registration (FREE)

User Registration is a modern free drag and drop WordPress user registration plugin which lets you create stunning registration pages in no time. It has a clean and user-friendly UI (User Interface) so that you can easily setup and build feature-rich custom registration forms. It is comparatively a newer plugin which is why integrates to the latest WordPress features.

As you create and save a new registration form, it provides a shortcode which you can use anywhere in your pages or posts. Now, the website visitors can register, build their own account/ profile on the site, and login to the site anytime later using the form. Moreover, it is user registration plus profile builder plugin for WordPress.

It takes just a few minutes to configure and create the forms using this plugin.

First, install the plugin and activate the plugin from WordPress.org. After activating the plugin, it asks you to ‘Install User Registration Pages’ or ‘skip setup’.

You must click on ‘Install User Registration Pages’ if you want to view/ use the sample pages provided by the plugin. The plugin offers two sample pages by default: User Registration and My Account. My Account page works as the users’ dashboard from where they can create the user profile, create password, and login to the site anytime later.

Creating user registration forms is super-easy with the plugin. Just drag and drop the custom fields as per your requirement.

Most noteworthy, the plugin enables you to create grid-like multi-column and multi-row forms easily. You can add up to three blocks/ columns in a single row and also add multiple rows in the single form.

Pros:

Cons:

Simple and basic for the advanced users.

Watch the video below to get quick overview on this plugin.

In Conclusion, User Registration is a simple yet feature-rich WordPress plugin for registration forms and user profiles. This is the best choice if you want a simple, minimalist and powerful free user registration plugin.

2. Ultimate Member (FREE + Paid Extensions)

Ultimate Member is a brilliant WordPress plugin for front-end user registration, login and beautiful user profiles. The plugin has simple yet a powerful user dashboard. The plugin offers advanced features and functionalities in the simple and user-friendly manner. It is indeed an outstanding piece of work – lightweight and highly extensible at the same time.

As you install the plugin, the plugin adds 7 sample pages on your WordPress website (Account, Login, Logout, Members, Password Reset, Register, and User). Therefore, it’s half the work done with the plugin activation. The plugin also provides three sample forms by default for Login, Profile, and Registration. So, you can simply copy and paste the default form shortcodes in the posts or pages (if you are okay with the default forms).

In order to create a new form, you must go the ‘Forms‘ menu inside Ultimate Member plugin menu. As you click on ‘Add New‘, it will provide you a page with drag and drop builder support as shown in the image below.

Choose Registration Form or Profile Form or Login Form as per your requirement. Next, you can choose how many columns you want in a row (1, 2 or three columns/ blocks). Then, simply click the ‘plus’ sign on the blocks and add the element you want. It is a complete page builder like WP plugin for user registration and login forms.

The core plugin is free, available at WordPress.org. In addition, there are multiple paid extensions for the plugin.

Additional Features of the Ultimate Member Plugin:

Conditional Logic for form fields

Appearance Menu with advanced color & design options

SEO optimized plugin

Import and export options

Custom User Roles

Pros:

The free plugin has a bundle of awesome features.

Cons:

The plugin adds multiple pages with the plugin activation which all the webmasters may not need. It adds pages as well as extra work.

In Conclusion, Ultimate Member is a powerful plugin for user registration and user profiles. With its extended and more extensible features, it is a great pick for big and fast growing websites.

3. Profile Builder (FREE + Premium)

Profile Builder is yet another powerful user registration and user profile plugin for WordPress. The plugin enables you to add front-end registration menu on your WP website easily with the shortcodes or widget. Simply create a new page on your WP dashboard and add the shortcode provided by the plugin on the page. And, you are almost done!

The plugin has provided a shortcode list which you can copy and paste into the pages on your WP site. Let’s check out some of them here:

Along with the shortcodes, the plugin adds a widget named ‘Profile Builder Login Widget‘ which you can add to your widget areas.

Furthermore, the plugin features front-end recover password, admin user approval, email confirmation, minimum password length and strength meter etc. There are multiple free add-ons available for extending the plugin’s functionalities. You can find more advanced features and premium add-ons with the plugin’s premium plans.

Pros:

Cons:

Profile Builder plugin has a complex user interface which may not be easily comprehensive for the beginners. Besides, it shows multiple notification boxes and ads for the premium add-ons.

The plugin allows creating only one registration form in the free version.

In the nutshell, Profile Builder is a powerful registration and profile plugin for WordPress. Good point is that you can download and try the free version and later upgrade to pro version for more features.

4. ProfilePress (FREE + Premium)

Perfected with a package of splendid features and simple user interface, ProfilePress offers a great solution for adding custom user registration forms and user profiles. The plugin enables you to create beautiful user registration forms, login forms and password reset forms via shortcodes. It is built-in with Shortcake (Shortcode UI) pluginwhich creates a superb user interface for adding shortcodes.

The plugin is available for FREE in the basic version while it has various premium plans for advanced users. There are a number of amazing add-ons and form themes which are mostly available in the Premium plans only.

Furthermore, the plugin provides three pre-made form themes for each type of form. You can view each of them, choose any one and use the given shortcode anywhere on your website. The plugin automatically adds three sample pages (Log In, Reset Password, and Sign Up) using one of the available themes.

Pros:

It offers a simple solution for multiple types of forms with multiple themes. Furthermore, there are official and premium add-ons for extending the functionalities.

Cons:

It’s very easy to create forms using the pre-made forms. However creating a new custom form may be quite a perplexing task for the non-coding users. You need to have some basic knowledge of using HTML and CSS for creating and customizing new forms using this plugin.

It requires another plugin Shortcake for adding shortcodes.

In Conclusion, ProfilePress plugin is a great alternative for creating user registration forms, login and passoword reset forms. It is a perfect pick for advanced users with good coding skills as offers higher extendibility and customizability with some coding and premium add-ons and themes.

5. RegistrationMagic (FREE + Premium)

Magical and magnificent as the name, RegistrationMagic is a great WordPress plugin for creating user registration, login and simple contact forms. It is more than just a membership registration form. The free version of the plugin comes with extended functionality with 90+ powerful standard features and 3 extensions. While the premium plan offers you even more amazing features as it comes bundled with 42 powerful extensions.

As you install and activate the plugin, it shows a popup for plugin tour that introduces you to each and every section and element in the plugin interface. It is helpful for the first time users however it’s also bothersome for some advanced users handling multiple projects.

The free plugin provides shortcodes for three ready to use sample forms which you can simply copy and paste in your custom pages.

The plugin automatically adds a page called ‘Submissions‘ where you can see how these pre-made forms work.

If you want to create a new form, you can simply click on ‘New Form’ which will redirect you to ‘Field Manager’ where you can add and manage fields as per your requirement. Simply click on ‘New Field’ which will show a popup with a number of field options to choose from. The free version of the plugin allows you to use all of the common fields, some of special and profile fields but none of the social fields. You need to buy the premium version for the advanced features.

Additional Features of the RegistrationMagic Plugin:

Accept payments

Security perfect WP plugin; Google reCAPTCHA keys

Magic popup button

Powerful email notifications

Pros:

Extended features and functionalities.

Cons:

The plugin has lots of options and features which may puzzle the layman users.

In Conclusion, RegistrationMagic is a great pick for advanced users with its extended features.

Wrapping Up

We have carefully handpicked these plugins from a collection for several plugins for user registration and profile. First, I installed all of the selected user plugins and tested and finally prepared this list of the best 5 plugins. So, I believe that it helps you to make correct and quick decision in selecting a plugin for WordPress registration forms.

In case you have already used any of the plugins, you may have more information about the plugin. Please share your experiences below in the comment box. User reviews and feedbacks help the new users in a great deal. 🙂

Sunita Rai

Sunita is a WordPress lover, digital marketing, SEO, and blogging enthusiast. She has appeared on ThemeGrill blog, WPAll, and multiple websites. She loves doing research, writing, travel, music and exploring life. She is a passionate learner and dreamer.
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